Survival after 50

Hi neighbors. Another year is rolling around. I had always heard that as you get old time passes faster. I don't think time actually moves at a faster pace. I think we just notice it less and it sneaks up on us.

As you get older you tend to ignore things you can do nothing about. Instead you have to concentrate on finding ways to do the important things -- like finding your glasses, remembering which day of the week it is, and opening food containers.

As I've often lamented, there may be elderly people in America going hungry. Perhaps not because of limited income but more likely because they can't open any food! It may be a conspiracy stemming from 'generation X' to push themselves into the spotlight and take out the 'baby boomers.' Just a few years ago I could pull apart any sack made of plastic and half filled with air. Like potato chip bags, cookie packages, cake mixes -- all the really nutritional things.

Now my most used utensils in the kitchen are scissors and pliers. Either they've improved the glue that holds the bags together, or I've gotten weaker. Must be the glue thing.

Do you remember when they tormented us in the 60s with those "easy open" boxes of food? They would even put a dotted line around one end. "A simple push of the thumb and the box opens right up!" Yeah, right. And after ten minutes of trying that...you can resort to using a knife or blow torch. I think thumb injuries must have been a major health issue in the 60s.

Now they have pull tabs on plastic covered cardboard cans for food like oatmeal and cake frosting. They even have pull tabs on the metal lids of cans. Same thing. It looks good. It could work -- it should be easy.

If you have the strength in one hand to withstand the 10 pound force you need to exert from the other hand, you can hold the can with one and pull the tab with the other. Sometimes I have to use the pliers to pull those metal cans with the 'easy open' pull tabs. Usually because I've damaged the pull tab trying to lift it far enough off the top of the can to get a finger into the tab to pull. A flat head screwdriver works well to pry them up, I've found.

I used to wonder why so many folks older than me would keep a tool box in their kitchens, now I know! Oh, the manufacturers make it easy to get into non-edibles. They like to keep us working -- probably thinks it keeps our minds off starvation.

Because older folks like to putter, some genius finally figured out to put resealable plastic lids on paint cans, and that little handy no-spill spout. There are long handled gardening tools, gutter cleaning sprayers that lift up so you don't have to get on a ladder. If you do need a ladder, they make them with hand rails now and I'm sure safety belts will be the next big thing. Maybe escalator ladders! Now that would be cool.

Have things stored on high shelves from the quickly vanishing days of your youth? No problem. Now there are long handled 'grabbers' that can reach up and get them. Or reach down and pick things up off of the floor.

There are many 'tools' to keep us working it seems.

Because older folks get tired of living in places where they have to rely on food they can't open to get through the winter, many of them spend the cold seasons in warmer climes. I think because there is food growing outside and they can walk out and pick something without having to open a can. Moving to Florida isn't a retirement dream -- it's a survival strategy.

People who have spent their entire working lives dealing with high tech computers, inventories, sales, complicated machines or caring for other people have to resort back to being hunter-gatherers. That's why you see so many elderly people all together whether on a tour bus or walking. It's not that they like each other's company so much, but that they have had to resort to herding to find food!

Until the next time friends remember; until the replicater of Star Trek fame actually gets invented, don't give up, don't migrate and don't starve. Younger folks with stronger grips and longer reaches, can be bribed.